Quite simply, the UFC was willing to pay him to go away and surrender his contracted fights.

But the PRIDE veteran didn't want to do that, and following a hard-fought decision victory over Ben Rothwell at Saturday's UFC 135 event, UFC president heaped praise on him.

In fact, it was White who convinced Hunt to attend the post-fight press conference for UFC 135, which took place Saturday at Denver's Pepsi Center. Hunt (7-7 MMA, 2-1 UFC) fought Rothwell (31-8 MMA, 1-2 UFC) on the night's pay-per-view main card.

"I actually asked Mark to come to this press conference," White said. "Many of you probably don't know, or some of you do know, when we bought PRIDE, he came as part of the PRIDE deal. It was back and forth, and basically I was like, 'You know what? We'll just pay you off what we owed you in the PRIDE deal.' Mark Hunt said, 'No, I want to come, and I want to fight.'"